has shown[citation needed][weasel words] that experiences, ideas, and beliefs are more easily recalled when they match one's own, causing an egocentric outlook.
These types of studies surrounding egocentric bias usually involve written or verbal questionnaires, based on the subject's personal life or their decision in various hypothetical scenarios.
Egocentric bias has influenced ethical judgements to the point where people not only believe that self-interested outcomes are preferential but are also the morally sound way to proceed.
It is believed that these results were obtained because self-awareness elevated subjects' concerns about perceived fairness in payment, thereby overriding egocentric tendencies.
[8] The egocentric bias can also be clearly observed in young children, especially those who have not yet developed theory of mind, or the ability to understand concrete situations from the perspective of others.
In one study by Wimmer and Perner, a child and a stuffed animal were presented with two differently colored boxes and both are shown that one contains an object of interest.
[9] The causes and motivations for egocentric bias were investigated in a 1983 journal entry by Brian Mullen of Murray State University.
Mullen analyzed the NBC television show "Play the Percentages" to determine whether egocentric bias was rooted in a perceptual and unintentional distortion of reality versus a conscious, intentional motivation to appear normalized.
At the start of each show, studio audiences were asked several trivia questions, and the percentage of correct answers was recorded for later use in the game.
This analysis ultimately supports the hypothesis that egocentric bias is a result of unintentional perceptual distortion of reality rather than a conscious, intentional motivation to appear normalized.
[10] From a psychological standpoint, memories appear to be stored in the brain in an egocentric manner: the role of oneself is magnified in one's experiences to make them more personally relevant and thereby easier to recall.
[4] Moreover, egocentric bias may have evolved from hunter-gatherer times, in which communities were small and interdependent enough that individuals could assume that others around them had very similar outlooks.
The varying degree of egocentric bias with age was attributed to the developmental cycle of the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG) of the parietal lobe, which finishes developing at the end of adolescence and decays early.
A study done by Paula Rubio-Fernández and Sam Glucksberg found that bilingual people are less prone to egocentric bias because they have grown to pay more attention to others' thoughts.
[13] Considered to be a facet of egocentric bias, the false-consensus effect states that people believe their thoughts, actions, and opinions are much more common than they are in reality.
For example, in the paper published by Ross, Greene, and House, the terms "false consensus" and "egocentric attribution bias" are used interchangeably.
Cross-cultural studies have found a strong presence of the egocentric bias in the primarily individualistic American, South African, and Yugoslavian communities, but noted the opposite effect in the collectivistic Japanese, Nepali, and Indian societies.
People from these cultures tend to demonstrate a bias toward modesty, in which success is attributed to external or group-related factors and failures are seen as the result of personal shortcomings.
[17] Bayesian reasoning is a form of statistical inference that relies on Bayes' rule to make probability prediction based on given information.
Studies like the urn experiment above provide evidence that the false-consensus effect is not entirely rational, and that egocentric viewpoints tend to be predominant.
This applies to both positive and negative inputs: in a study of married couples, each spouse rated themselves as more responsible for helpful (cleaning) and detractive activities (causing arguments).
On the other hand, people suffering from depression may have a lower tendency towards egocentricity, as evidenced by the fact that they tend to more realistically rate their contributions to group work, while non-depressed participants often overreport their additions.
Firstly, people tend to view their personal choice between voting and abstinence as a reflection of those who support the same candidates and issues.